@ svenskmand: Of course there should also be a link to the Forum on the Page, but not in the main menue for example.... The site should mainly get people to download the game and play it...

@ StefanP.MUC: Yeah, as I said, you were on the right way ;-)

hmmmm..... I can setup the site as you like, I'm webdesigner and web-programmer so all options are possible for me, but I would suggest to take a solution with a CMS (Content management system like Joomla, Typo3, wordpress, etc) because you can edit the content of the page without writing code. Usually I'm using a self coded CMS because there is better SEO and it's endless modifyable....

There is just one problem... The CMS I'm using usually is in german only and it's paysoftware (but I think it would maybe be possible to get it for this project for free)...The other option is to take a freeware CMS like Joomla or Typo3 but if we do, there are some restrictions for my work...

I've looked through the forum and saw the article about the new graphics... really impressive!!! I think we should try to get your page redesigned right for this new release of the game!

There are some questions left for me: You have a webserver with PHP and MySQL, right? Version?Is the Logo of OD fixed or can I try to redesign it too with the new page?Where can I get some graphic material of the game, especially the new ones which aren't released yet? I need a lot of graphic material for building up the new design!Should there be a donation system where people can donate money for the project?Would I be allowed to place ads on the site for my work?Is there a facebook page for OD? If not, it MUST be created!Is there newer video material of OD?When is the planned release date of the new version of OD or when should the new page be ready?

Azrael wrote:There is just one problem... The CMS I'm using usually is in german only and it's paysoftware (but I think it would maybe be possible to get it for this project for free)...The other option is to take a freeware CMS like Joomla or Typo3 but if we do, there are some restrictions for my work...

We will use a FOSS alternative so something like Joomla or Typo3 is fine, pick whatever you like best, that is FOSS.

Azrael wrote:There are some questions left for me: You have a webserver with PHP and MySQL, right? Version?

Yes we have a MySQL or some sort of sql server and we can also use a php server on our server. We use SourceForge for hosting, which provides all this stuff. I do not know which versions we use though, somebody else would know, e.g. Stefan or oln.

Azrael wrote:Is the Logo of OD fixed or can I try to redesign it too with the new page?

The logo is pretty much fixed, but if you have some good ideas then lets us hear them, maybe we decide to use them instead. But the logo should be in SVG as we need flexibility in using it in all sizes.

To be a bit more specific about the logo then this logo is pretty much set in stone (fixed), whereas this one could benefit from some more work.

Azrael wrote:Where can I get some graphic material of the game, especially the new ones which aren't released yet? I need a lot of graphic material for building up the new design!

Azrael wrote:Should there be a donation system where people can donate money for the project?

We have not talked about this before, maybe a good idea. But I am guessing that we would have to pay some company to handle the transactions, which is fine if it is only a fixed percentage of the donations, and not an expense even if we get no donations. Also I have no idea what we should use the money for as of now?

Azrael wrote:Would I be allowed to place ads on the site for my work?

I do not think we would like ads as this is FOSS project and only driven by peoples desire to help out. It also gives a bad impression when you have open source software and then there are ads on the page, then you might think it is not FOSS but Shareware or Freeware, i.e. something that is not Free Software. At least that is my personal opinion.

Azrael wrote:Is there a facebook page for OD? If not, it MUST be created!

I thought about donations, too. But for this, I think, we would need one very trusted person that acts as an "owner" or "central contacts person". Currently OD development is only driven by a rather loose community from all over the world.

So, this should be something for the future when the website, the code base and the "devlopment flow" are all together very "reliable", more than a "proof-of-concept" and very stable (don't know if these are the right words).

Unsure what you meant here. If you by this mean something (banner/link/whatever) to credit, link and/or show that you worked on the website, then of course you are allowed to. Everyone working on the project is to be credited for their contributions.If you are referring to the idea of having ads for income, I suppose we would have to have a discussion about that first.

I do not see what we should use money for at the moment. When the game is running and playable, i.e. nearly finished then we could use some money for dedicated servers and stuff, but it will be a long time before that is necessary.

I think that plugin was obsolete or not compatible or something last time we upgraded. Did some changes to the screenshot page now though, maybe it looks a bit better.

As for a feed from the forums, it seems to require that the forum admins install a plugin. Additionaly, it seemed like the site might be blocked from accessing outside urls, as I got an error when testing an RSS plugin for mediawiki. (Will have to investigate further though.)

Also I do not really understand why you want a rss feed from the forums in the website. If people want to read the forums they will do :S So why have he feed in the first place? I think a development blog would be useful IF anybody wants to update it whey they create stuff. I think the idea of a blog is good but I a pretty sure that I would personally not get any posts made about the stuff I make of OD, because once it is done I rather want to move on with the next task than to document it in every detail. But then again when we make stuff we usually shows it off in the forums, but there is not many details. In the content postings there is some details but in say a code contribution there is not really much useful information to put in a blog-post imo.

For me the website should just be more or less static and contain the most basic information like, screenshots and videos to show off the latest stuff, a download link for the newest stuff, documentation of the game (controls, multiplayer, the likes) and then finally a entry to the player forums, and for submitting bug-reports.

A static page would not take much time to make (given one has the skills, which I sadly do not :S) so if this is what we want then we could do it fast. If I recall we more or less agreed on the design I proposed?

svenskmand wrote:Also I do not really understand why you want a rss feed from the forums in the website. If people want to read the forums they will do :S So why have he feed in the first place? I think a development blog would be useful IF anybody wants to update it whey they create stuff.

The point was to use a forum as the blog, rather than having to post things in two places.Anyhow, for a dedicated blog, there probably wouldn't be a lot of posts besides release announcements. I'm not a person that tends to write long posts about new features, though if someone else likes doing that kind of thing then that would be cool.

So yeah, we could try to set up a simple wordpress (or similar) page that contains some static info about the game, and links, like what has been suggested earlier. (Or possibly skin the wiki to look like one.)

And yeah, we could use someone with web design skills. Several people have offered to make sites, but then they just disappear.

I'd write blog posts for new features if we'll have a blog. I think the posts don't have to be extremly detailed or very long, it would just be a place with small posts about dev updates and release annoumcent that people can subscribe and that can be read by the FGD Planet feed collector.

It would be good if the RSS feed could be connected to the forum (write a forum thread and have it published as a "blog post" in the feed), but if that does not work (as it currently seems), then we should have some kind of small blog software (maybe Wordpress would be overkill if we also have a static website).

I'm able to write a static HTML+CSS website pretty quick, but I'm not sure if my artistic skills are good enough to design a "perfect" layout (colors, arrengment, proportions and everything). I'd basically continue what I already started (see post somewhere above):Take the OD logo, put a vertical menu below with Links to static pages about "About", "Download" and "Develpment" plus external Links to Forum, Wiki and the optional blog.

If we actually get the rss feed to work then we would also have to have a developer role/class assigned to developers here in the forum, else everybody that posts in the specific subforum (for blog posts) will generate blog posts. Of course that will only be a problem if people that have a FGD account are not well-behaved, and we have moderators, so maybe it is a non-issue after all.

Okay, does anybody want to start working on it? Otherwise I will try in a week or two. Currently quite knocked out due to septoplasty/turbinate reduction surgery. I think we should try to have this working before the next release.

I found "Wolf CMS" (http://www.wolfcms.org/) pretty good. It's actively developed, lightwight, secure, standard conform, very well documented and has a lot of optional plugins. It provides static pages, a blog and has a very clean standard theme that can easily be adjusted to the OD theme.